Options
by catsandsvu
Summary: The night after Olivia's open court testimony against William Lewis, Elliot reflects on what he'd heard in that courtroom. She's sleeping in his arms, and he knows doesn't have options anymore.


A/N: Based off an anonymous submission. This is a one-shot. Happy Thanksgiving.

* * *

She's sleeping. It's been three years, and she's sleeping. His left hand is wound into her hair, his thumb tracing her temple, and her chest, her stomach is rising and falling against his.

_"And at that point, he attempted to—he attempted," Olivia's lips press together, and she sits on the witness stand. She shakes her head quickly. "He attempted to undo my belt, and the housekeeper knocked on the door." She rushes her words, as if getting them out quicker will lessen everything that is overwhelming her._

_She'd looked into the open court then. She looked at the faces. She'd seen him. For the briefest second, her eyes widened, and she inhaled deeply. Her eyes were locked on his, and he gritted his jaw. Elliot drew in a breath, and while her eyes were on him, he made it a point to exhale slowly, to help her let go of the air inside her chest. And she had. She'd let go of the breath, and her shoulders had fallen a little._

_Prosecuting district attorney Raphael Barba had asked her another question, and Olivia answered on autopilot. She answered correctly, and eloquently, and Elliot had wondered if she'd heard it, because her gaze remained intensely focused on him when she spoke. Her eyelids lowered slightly, and the questions kept rolling_.

In her slumber, Olivia's hand rests on the stubble against his jaw, her elbow on his chest. The long sleeve of her shirt is slightly bunched around her forearm, the revealed skin touching against the bare, heated skin of his chest. Her left leg is settled completely between both of his. She's still wearing her work pants, her blouse.

She's sleeping on him.

Elliot's hand runs through her soft hair, down the slope of her neck, feeling her pulse, and settles on her upper back. He pulls her a little closer, gently, so he doesn't wake her.

_His blood is boiling. He's clenching his teeth so hard, he's got a raging headache, and his jaw aches. He tightens his grasp on his knees as she delivers the details of the details of the blow torch, the cigarette burns to her chest, the key brandings on her skin._

_Her voice stays strong. Her words are punctuated. She doesn't shake, and she doesn't ask for a recess. Every now and then her eyes lift to his, and she searches for safety. She seems to find her life preserver every time._

_He nods to her. She returns it._

_And she presses forward continually_.

Olivia's sigh is hot against the right side of his chest, his shoulder. Her air washes over him, and she settles her cheek back into the hollow of him. Her hair drapes over her shoulder, and down his right bicep, the arm that he has curved around her back, his fingers digging into the curve of her waist.

_"I can't remember," she answers the prosecutor. "He had drugged me with sleeping pills, and forced vodka down my throat."_

_"Sergeant Benson," Barba continued walking toward her as she sat on the stand. "Would you please tell the court that over the course of four days, how much water the defendant had given you, how much food?"_

_Olivia's hand ran through her hair, and down to her mouth. Her fingers scrubbed against her lips, and she locked her eyes on the counselor's._

_"I didn't have food. He gave me water once a day so I wouldn't dehydrate or be poisoned from the amounts of alcohol in my system."_

_Elliot bites back a string of curses, and instead rolls his neck, cracks his knuckles. He is shaking. Visibly. His hands tremble with the raw, inexplicable rage, fury, anger. His breath is that of a dragon. He's nearly grunting with how fierce it was._

_She didn't look at him now, because she could do this. He knew her. He knew she could, because she's always been stronger than him. Even now. She's stronger, she's tougher, her will is unbreakable_.

He's holding her so tightly against him, he doesn't know how she hasn't stirred at all. He's lying in his bed, with his former partner on him. He brought her here after court. They hadn't exchanged a hello. Not a single explanation.

_Got Chinese leftovers at my apartment_.

She'd nodded, and instinctively walked on his right side, because for a dozen years that's where she'd been. Right. Always on his right.

She'd asked him incessantly about his kids, his ex-wife, his job. She'd searched for three years of details, three years of him, in six hours on his couch.

It turned into 11 pm, and Elliot had offered her his couch, because there was no such thing as Olivia leaving. There was no such thing as him letting her. No such thing as him leaving.

_"You can take the couch," Olivia smirks._

_He smiles, and nods at her, agreeing. "Fair 'nough."_

_But not twenty minutes later, from his bedroom, he'd heard her crying, gasping. He immediately threw the thin fleece from him, and moved swiftly to his room. She was still, under his blankets, in his bed, and he'd knelt down in front of her. When his hand rested on her forearm, Olivia had shot forward, and she screamed, "No!"_

_Elliot had stood, leaned on his bed. His hands rested on either side of her head, and she pressed her face down into her palms._

_"Olivia, it's okay," he murmured. "It's isn't real. You're not there. I'm with you," he promised. His body had come to sit beside her on the edge of his mattress. His fingers slipped into her hair the moment she hiccuped for oxygen. Her hands didn't leave her face when he pulled her against him, his naked chest. Her weight rested on his body easily, and his hands pressed against her back, rubbing her._

_She didn't speak._

_Over the course of fifteen minutes, she'd moved little by little toward the middle of his bed, and Elliot followed. Olivia was falling asleep on him, and it was inevitable that he'd laid down beside her. She'd shifted into him, his heat, his skin, without ever uttering a single word._

_Elliot pulled the covers over the both of them, and she's been sleeping ever since._

He feels her lashes skim is neck, and he knows she's waking, because her breath is a long inhale, her torso stretching against him. His arms tighten around Olivia, and he feels her swallow.

"El," she whispers, without lifting her head from his body. Her hand moves slowly between his pectorals, and across his abdomen, until she curves it around him, shoving her hand around his waist.

"Hm?" He tucks her head more securely under his chin. With her breasts against him, her pulse on him, he feels her heart pick up pace. Olivia takes in a deep inhale through her nose.

"Don't go again," she commands through her exhaustion. Her nails push lightly into his skin, and her exhale becomes erratic when he pulls her tighter toward him.

Elliot's mouth falls to the top of her hair, feeling the strands against his lips. She tenses because she thinks he's kissing her, but she can't be sure, because she's tired. She's tired, and this is probably not happening anyway.

"Okay," he mumbles against her, and it must be enough because every muscle in her loosens again. She settles, adjusting her leg between his. Her body rests into his promise.

"'Kay," Olivia agrees lethargically.

As quickly as she had awakened, she almost immediately is back into her sedated state. Inside him, the simple oath he had offered her rings so nauseatingly truthful, that he's lethargic, dizzy. Elliot breathes against her, and notices that her hair smells like vanilla.

In his bed, with Olivia under his covers, his roof, his protection, his watch, his hold, his promise, he finds the rest he hasn't been able to grasp in three endless years. He's going to be bigger for her. More. Because this time, leaving isn't an option.

With Olivia in his arms, Elliot finally falls asleep.


End file.
